Book review: "Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain

It's always exciting to come upon the work of a promising young author. Case in point: The novel "Tom Sawyer," by a Missouri-based writer named Mark Twain, which I just finished reading. While Twain wrote one previous novel with a co-author, "Tom Sawyer" is his first as sole author.

"Tom Sawyer" is a nostalgia-tinted tale of a mischievous boy — about 12 or 13, though Twain never specifies — living in the fictional town of St. Petersburg, Missouri. Tom, the main character, is a too-smart-for-his-own-good kid who can trick his friends into doing his chores, sweet talk the girls, and lead his buddies on days-long adventures as imaginary pirates and robbers.

The book braids several storylines together — Tom witnesses a murder, he pursues the winsome  Becky Thatcher, he and Huckleberry Finn go looking for buried treasure — and eventually it all comes together for an engaging finish.

Twain makes it clear in the preface that "Tom Sawyer" is based in fact:

"Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates of mine."

While the stories are fun, the writing is imperfect. For starters, Twain primarily tells the story from the "limited" third-person perspective — that is, from the point of view of Tom Sawyer. But, jarringly, he sometimes switches to the omniscient third person. In fact, one crucial section is told entirely from the point of view of Huck Finn.

My second criticism, I admit, is not very fair to Twain. But to read this book, published in 1872, in the twenty-first century is to encounter some antiquated vocabulary and colloquialisms that no longer are familiar. I'm not sure what Huck Finn meant when he said Robin Hood "must a ben a brick," for example, and there are several uses of the old word "stile," a term I was not familiar with.

It's too bad, because Twain also showsa great talent for colloquial dialogue, especially in the frequent rat-a-tat exchanges among adolescents. Here's one good section that starts with a question from Huck Finn.

"What does pirates have to do?"

Tom said:

"Oh, they have just a bully time -- take ships and burn them, and get the money and bury it in awful places in their island where there's ghosts and things to watch it, and kill everybody in the ships -- make 'em walk a plank."

"And they carry the women to the island," said Joe; "they don't kill the women."

"No," assented Tom, "they don't kill the women -- they're too noble. And the women's always beautiful, too."

"And don't they wear the bulliest clothes! Oh no! All gold and silver and di'monds," said Joe, with enthusiasm.

"Who?" said Huck.

"Why, the pirates."

Huck scanned his own clothing forlornly.

"I reckon I ain't dressed fitten for a pirate," said he, with a regretful pathos in his voice; "but I ain't got none but these."

It is, despite it's occasional flaws, an enjoyable read. I can't wait to see what Mr. Twain will produce next.

Book review: "Walden" by Henry David Thoreau

I tried to finish "Walden," I really did. I made it all the way to page 368, prodding myself to keep going, reading a little, skimming a little. But even after many days of this I had another 140 pages to go and I realized I couldn't take more of this masochism.

Yes, I know that "Walden," first published in 1854, is considered a classic by many.

Some people revere the book, which is partly based on the two years Henry David Thoreau lived alone in a  cabin by Walden Pond outside Boston. Thoreau's philosophy of rejecting frivolous trappings of modern life and returning to a spartan life close to nature strikes home with many people.

"Simplify, simplify, simplify," Thoreau famously says. At another point, he commands, "Live free and uncommitted."  And he notes:  "There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of Nature and has his senses still."

But for every nugget of wisdom Thoreau offers up, there are a dozen other sentences that go off the rails. They start intriguingly and you wonder where he's going, then the sentence twists and bends and soon becomes so tangled as to be indecipherable.

One of his sentences -- I'm not making this up -- clocks in at 248 words. At another point he throws in a 173-word sentence about pine groves. immediately followed by a 194-word sentence. Were there no editors in the 19th century? I love a good puzzle, but no amount of reverse engineering can make sense of some of the writing.

Thoreau can write lyrically, even beautifully, but he doesn't know when to stop. At one point, for example, he describes the glassy surface of Walden Pond like this, "When you invert your head, it looks like the finest gossamer stretched across the valley, and gleaming against the distant pine woods, separating one stratum of the atmosphere from another." Nice, right? Yes, except Thoreau keeps restating the same point -- the pond is smooth as glass -- for six more pages.

Thoreau lectures readers on the failings of their lives ("Men live lives of quiet desperation"), while exhibiting exceptional arrogance. "I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and have yet to hear the first syllable or even earnest advice from my seniors."

"Walden" has no real story, no compelling direction, and the chapters are arranged in no particular order.

Then there are the contradictions. At one point Thoreau says, "I dearly love to talk," but later he says "I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude." Just eight pages later he says, "I love society as much as most, and am ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my way."  Yet, throughout the book he ridicules most people as shallow and shortsighted.

I understand that Thoreau's philosophy strikes a nerve. I think we all recognize ourselves, even today, when he says, "Our life is frittered away by detail." We think of our phones and other gadgets when he says, "Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys which distract our attention from serious things."

And I'm sure many readers like that Thoreau encourages a lifestyle of working as little as possible.

But just when you start to think, "Hey, this guy Thoreau knows what he's talking about" he'll throw in a passage that makes you question his grasp of reality. Like this one:

"A lady once offered me a mat, but as I had no room to spare within the the house, nor time to spare within or without to shake it, I declined it preferring to wipe my feet on the sod before my door. It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil."

Let's break that down. First, a man who brags that he barely works doesn't have time to shake out a mat? And second, a mat to wipe his feet is the beginning of evil? What would happen if -- gasp! -- someone offered him a towel?

Many people are fascinated by the idea of breaking free from the bonds of civilized society and living independently with few responsibilities or commitments. While few of us are willing to drop our jobs and leave behind our modern comforts, the idea that it might be possible to do so is an entrancing thought.

For those people, Thoreau is a shining light of possibility. But a small collection of Thoreau quotes will do you quite nicely; you don't need to read the whole book.